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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JollyDoc" data-source="post: 3843400" data-attributes="member: 9546">Ioma turned out to have no shortage of hidden coves, and in one of the more secluded ones, the Sea Wyvern dropped anchor.  As the Legionnaires disembarked, Mandi instructed Urol to remain there for no longer than one week.  If they had not returned, or if the crew found themselves in imminent danger, they were to set sail for any port of their choosing.  The sorceress also reminded the gnome what the price of treachery would be.Once they reached shore, Mandi attempted another message to Lavinia.  This time, she got no reply.  “It doesn’t mean anything,” she said to her anxious allies.  “She may be unconscious, or being held in a place that is warded.  We continue with our plan.”It took them the better part of the day, slogging across the stinking, steaming scar of land through festering salt marshes and dripping jungles, until they finally came within sight of Scuttlecove.  The landward gates stood open and unmanned.  The company passed through unmolested into the city itself.  What they saw when they emerged on the other side of the portals could only be described as a diseased, filthy pit of salty depression.  The streets were muddy and choked with garbage, and even the odd corpse, slowly putrefying in the stagnant heat.  The buildings were almost all one-story wooden affairs, with rickety walls, sagging roofs of tarred straw or cracked wood shingles, and doorways consisting of dried seaweed or cheap burlap.  The lost souls that comprised the populace of the festering metropolis barely glanced their way, except in hungry avarice, sizing them up as possible victims.Mandi knew exactly what sort of place Scuttlecove was.  She’d been in similar cesspools during her long span of years, and she knew the currency of such:  money and violence.  Catching Tower Cleaver’s eye, she jerked her head towards an old salt who crouched in a gutter, panhandling.  The minotaur snorted and leaned over the man, lifting him into the air with one massive paw.“Don’ kill me!” the beggar squeaked.  “I ain’t done nothin’!  I swear!”“Your very existence offends me, worm!”  Mandi hissed.  “If you care to draw one more wretched breath into your diseased lungs, you’ll tell me exactly what I want to hear!”“Anythin’!  Anythin’!” the man wailed.  “Where is Red Foam Whaling?” she began.  For a moment, the leper only blinked, confused, but a stiff shake from Cleaver seemed to jog his memory.“Near the docks!  An old abandoned fac’try!  Used t’be run by th’Red Foam Boys…thought they’d make a go o’robbin’ whalin’ ships and sellin’ the harvest themselves…that is till they found out they’d actually have t’work t’render the whales!”  At that, the old man burst into a spasm of hysterical giggles.  Another rough shaking from Tower Cleaver brought him back to his senses.  “Fac’try’s been abandoned since, but rumor has it th’Protectorate’s usin’ it now!”Mandi’s eyes narrowed.  “The Protectorate?”“Bunch o’do-gooders,” the beggar bawled.  “Think they can save us all!”  He began laughing again, until a look from Cleaver silenced him once more.“Who rules this city?”  Mandi demanded.  The old man almost started to cackle again, but stopped himself abruptly.“Who rules?”  he asked, eyes wide.  “Whoever can!  If ye’re not in one o’th gangs, yer nothin’!   Like me!  Oh, I guess ye could say that the Dire Hunger Monks is th’law, but they work fer th’highest bidder.  I’d steer clear o’em if I was you, less ye want t’end up inna stew pot!”  At this, he did begin laughing, and no amount of cajoling from Cleaver could bring him out of it.  At Mandi’s word, the minotaur tossed the man aside like a rag doll, where he lay in the gutter, still chortling to himself.</blockquote>

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